resounding blow with his great palm.

"He's a hard hitter," said Milton.

At length he leaped, apparently in uncontrollable excitement, upon the
mourners' bench, and ran up and down close to the listening, moaning
audience. He walked with a furious rhythmic, stamping action, like a
Sioux in the war dance. Wild cries burst from his audience, antiphonal
with his own.

"He 'SHALL' send light!"

"_Send Thy arrows, O Lord._"

"O God, come!"

"He 'SHALL' keep His word!"

One old negro woman, fat, powerful, and gloomy, suddenly arose and
uttered a scream that had the dignity and savagery of a mountain lion's
cry. It rang far out into the night.

The exhorter continued his mad, furious, thumping, barbaric walk.

Behind him a row of other exhorters sat, a relay ready to leap to his
aid. They urged on the tumult with wild cries.

"A-men, brother."

"YES, brother, YES!" clapping their hands in rhythm.

The exhorter redoubled his fury. He was like a jaded actor rising at
applause, carried out of his self-command.

Out of the obscure tumult of faces and tossing hands there came at last
certain recognizable features. The people were mainly farming folks of
the more ignorant sort, rude in dress and bearing, hard and bent with
toil. They were recognizably of a class subject to these low forms of
religious excitement which were once well-nigh universal.

The outer fringe continued to smile scornfully and to jest, yet they
were awed, in a way, by this suddenly revealed deep of barbaric emotion.

The girls were appalled by the increasing clangor. Milton was amused,
but Ben grew bitter. Something strong came out in him, too. His lip
curled in disgust.

Suddenly, out of the level space of bowed shoulders, tossing hands, and
frenzied, upturned faces, a young girl leaped erect. She was strong and
handsome, powerful in the waist and shoulders. Her hair was braided like
a child's, and fell down her back in a single strand. Her head was
girlish, but her face looked old and drawn and tortured.

She moaned pitifully; she clapped her hands with wild gestures, ending
in a quivering motion. The action grew to lightning-like quickness. Her
head seemed to set in its socket. Her whole body stiffened. Gasping
moans came from her clenched teeth as she fell to the ground and rolled
under the seats, wallowing in the muddy straw and beating her feet upon
the ground like a dying partridge.

The people crowded about her, but the preache